Lifeguard Shavon O'Leary watches over swimmers in the water at the Leo Cancellare Pool at 650 Wallenberg Drive in West El Paso Tuesday. ( Rudy Gutierrez—El Paso Times)

REPORTER

Kristopher Rivera

City officials moved ahead Tuesday in building an $8 million, Olympic-sized pool on the West Side.

The Westside pool will be designed by In*Situ Architecture PLLC for about $732,000. The motion passed unanimously.

"The actual fee falls within what is paid in industry standards for design services, so honestly it's within that range," said Javier Reyes, the city's quality of life division manager.

Reyes said they believe construction could begin by September 2015 and possibly finished by summer 2016. The project, which is part of the 2012 Quality of Life Bond proposal, is in response to the lack of a public, competitive-sized pool in west El Paso.

Designers will build a pool for competitions that is 50 meters in length and 23 meters wide. The existing pool at Leo Cancellare, 650 Wallenberg, will be used as a warm up and cool down pool. The facility will be remodeled to accommodate 840 spectators and 420 swimmers. The facility will be registered by the USA Swimming Association for competitive swimming.

Currently, the only competitive-sized swimming pool in the city is the Pavo Real pool in the Lower Valley.

Reyes said they looked at 10 locations in west El Paso and decided Leo Cancellare Pool was the best place for the new pool.

"We were going to go ahead and start this design in January, we were ready," Reyes said.

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In January, the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) planned to help the city fund the project and the pool would be located in one of the district's facilities. However, because of cuts in the district's budget, the plan was dropped.

"They (EPISD) did not have funds, the plan was to work with El Paso Independent School District to go ahead and use their property, their facilities," Reyes said. "But also for them to go ahead and contribute to the project, and with the situation they're in, it didn't really work out."

Swimmers in the water at the Leo Cancellare Pool at 650 Wallenberg Drive in West El Paso Tuesday. (Rudy Gutierrez—El Paso Times)

Next week, contractors will begin to map the mechanical designs, electrical designs and construction designs for the facility.

"For $8 million, they better stick to that $8 million and they can build us a Taj Mahal of pools with that money, they better because that's what we voted for," said Sarah Garcia, 40, of Central El Paso.

Garcia, who is a member of the El Paso swimming community, was concerned about the decision-making process of the pool project and questioned the cost of the project. She said city officials did not answer questions from the community about how contract bidding works. In a statement, city officials said former city manager Joyce Wilson met with the El Paso swimming community to present the proposed pool project and its location at the Leo Cancellare pool.

Although city officials talked with members of the community about the pool, Garcia said "They tell us what they think we want to hear."